top of the world
by Ten-Faced
Summary: even those at the zenith have to follow the law of power. - Aria, Cygnus. Twoshot. [She tried to defy the law of power and died] [She tried to resist the law of power and was tainted] Heavily hinted Phantom/Aria.
1. Aria

1. Aria

:She tried to defy the law of power and died:

Warning: Death at the very end, Phantom x Aria (mentioned), and the author ignores canon to make the story fit.

* * *

Aria wanted a world of peace. A world where people were content and evil did not exist, where the very air was sweet and no one shed tear in pain.

She was empress, wasn't she? She had the divine bird at her side, the spell of slow-age activated in her blood, the world at her command. Who would deny her of the opportunity to build this utopia for her people?

Her advisors disagreed. She shook her head and tried –tried so hard her throat nearly bled – to make them see that there was, in fact, sense in decreasing violence, even the pettiest ones. That there was, in fact, more to life than simply sending her people to die fighting a foe they had never even tried talking to. More than becoming a tyrant to her people.

Her grandfather had taken the throne after a bloody war where thousands of innocents had died. Her mother had overexerted herself trying to repair the damages, her sister had died leaving behind a daughter too young and now, when Aria was the only one left she couldn't just let this beautiful, fragile world fall back into chaos and despair again. She had the power. Her family had stained themselves in a mistake and she had a duty to make it clean.

Her advisors disagreed and clenched their blades and clashed their shields, the blood of the battle burning within their veins for more, more, more.

More what? More blood of innocents spilled upon grounds? More unhappiness and hatred festering away in the air to rot like carcasses not picked clean?

_They don't understand_, she whispered to a flamboyant thief one day when he tried to slip in and steal her favourite gem yet again.

He paused, his gloved fingers twitching slightly just a small distance from the displayed jewel, and softly asked a question to her. _Who_?

_Everyone_, she said, and that may have been a gross exaggeration on her part but she just didn't care. _I refuse to become a bloody tyrant who climbs to power on the steps created out of innocent lives, and yet they tell me that this is the only way to truly exert my power._

_Something tells me I will not gain the treasure of Ereve tonight, _he sighed and leaned on the windowsill ever so casually, like the phantom with the flashing gold decorations truly belonged there. Perhaps he did belong there as the companion of her heart, the night-time guest that was a delicious rush of fresh air to the stuffy palace's prison of politics.

Perhaps she didn't. Perhaps she had aught to scream. She didn't and they stood in comfortable silence for a long time, each pondering and waiting for the moment when the right words struck the mind and lit up the darkness like the morning sun.

_You have visited many places,_ she said suddenly. _Tell me, is it like this everywhere? Is power truly worth innocent lives and lies? Worth the blood that will paint and stain my feet forever?_

He tipped his head and looked at her with eyes hidden by the strange cap he donned, and just as she thought he was mocking her he spoke softly, his voice on the verge of a quiver. _Yes_, he said. _But I wish it weren't so._

_Oh,_ she said. _Oh_.

He left her, but not without another rose and a promise to return for the jewel falsely claimed to be the treasure of Ereve.

In the day, under the light of the sun that was supposed to dispel the false spells of the dark and mist she returned to the lies, the tiring dance of politics and false courtesies and it was all she could do to not drown in the ruthless waves of heavy subtlety and attempts to undermine her authority.

Was there no peaceful way to solve this?

When a messenger came from the organization called Black Wings to arrange a talk between the two sides she jumped at the chance. Negotiations, peace talks, yes, she could do this, she could take the chance and prove that there was a way of co-existing.

She loved this world more than anything. She would have given anything to protect its peace and innocents.

_~Aria died, and Shinsoo was helpless as yet another empress failed to fully take use of the Divine Bird's Blessing~_

* * *

_Personal Maplestory Headcanon: The emperor/empress of Ereve blessed by Shinsoo gets a no-age kind of spell that lets them be immortal as long as they're not killed or sick. I like to think that Cygnus is Aria's direct niece and still lived all those years as a child, which will be covered in the next chapter._

_Also, I emailed the ff staff and asked them to add a bunch of characters to the category. The list now appears twice its former length._


	2. Cygnus

2. Cygnus

:She tried to resist the law of power and was tainted:

* * *

When Cygnus was a girl, she became the empress of Ereve.

All previous emperors and empresses had been adults when they received the blessing of Shinoo, the spell that would slow down their aging process to the point where the emperors and empresses were nearly immortal.

Or, that was how it was supposed to be. Not many of her ancestors had managed to fully use the blessing's powers. Her aunt certainly hadn't.

The throne of Ereve, despite its beauty and allure, was stained with blood and tears. Emperors and empresses died of overexertion, of successful assassinations that Shinsoo weren't able to stop, of careless falls and plotting ministers, of taking their own lives once they found that nothing was worth sitting on the throne with the crown, not even their sacred duty.

Most of the past emperor and empresses had been adults when they climbed the white marble steps of lies and deceit, of bones and death to the beautiful throne to chain themselves into a duty that would only end with their deaths.

Cygnus had been eight. For every century that passed she gained a year physically. For three centuries she remained a woman trapped in a child's body, and she never matured or awakened her true powers. She remained a child and her mind stayed as a child's because it was safer and easier to admit that she wasn't ready than to pretend she was and suffer the humiliation of not receiving the full blessing.

She clung to her throne, the one that she had inherited from her aunt, her late mother's sweet sister who had died incredibly, tragically young and soon for an empress of Ereve and clenched her eyes shut to avoid the sight of whispering, uncertain ministers and advisors who thought her weak.

Her ears remained open and she heard the sounds of those that doubted her. They thought that it would be best if she became an adult.

By year of birth she was older than them and yet, she could say nothing, for what they said was true. She was not yet a full empress, and when the Black Mage awakened she would be nothing against his wrath and power.

_You cannot force yourself to mature, empress_. Neinheart had said that to her once with a stern look behind his gleaming monocle. _There will come a time when you awaken them on your own, but until then you must endure._

Neinheart. His heart was pure, was sworn to her. He was the only one who understood her, and yet he did not understand her at all. It had been three hundred years and she was still a weak girl.

Weak girls, according to advisors other than her Head Knights and Neinheart, would only grow up to be weak women. The world would have no place for a weak woman.

They did not respect her or acknowledge her power when the Heroes promised to support her, nor when she awakened her blood lineage and restored the divine bird back to life. They refused – in the frustrating, indirect way of the court – to fully, wholeheartedly support her ideas and suggestions.

_One weak empress,_ they said, _had been enough for Ereve._

They spoke of the woman who had followed her heart and kept it pure from the taint of politics. They spoke of her deceased aunt. They spoke of her as a weak willed woman who had foolish thoughts and was killed because of careless actions when in reality she was far from their version of her.

Cygnus had had enough of this. She sought out the most powerful source in this world, hoping that she her beloved knights would finally get the recognition they deserved.

If power was what they wanted, she would give them power. She would give them a powerful Knighthood backed by a powerful deity with a powerful leader fully capable of everything they wished for and prove once and for all that she was no longer a child, that the past emperors and empresses of Ereve and _especially Empress Aria_ had never been _weak_. They would remove the source of evil from this world, match the Heroes and the Resistance and the rest of the Alliance in terms of strength and the world would become a happy place.

_~Cygnus learnt the hard way that power would corrupt, and her attendants suffered for this~_

* * *

_AN: Originally I wanted to have Sakuno (princess from Hayato's storyline) to have a part here but since I know barely anything about her, I gave up on that idea._


End file.
